KayakPeg
Just another WordPress.com weblogKoreshan State Historic Site State Park
Kevin and I packed up and with our beautiful washed and waxed trailer hooked on to the back of the truck and our buddy Sean (who helped with the waxing) along; we were off to this sweet park in Estero, Florida. We were meeting up with several other Kayakers for the weekend. We got there and set up and help those coming in behind us. Kevin and I took off on our bikes for some site seeing. The park has a nice picnic and playground area, as well as a very nice boat ramp. The park is also the site of the Koreshan Unity Settlement…more on this later.
The day started off very hot, but the weather soon changed late on Friday, when it started raining and continued on and off until around noon on Saturday. Everyone was tent camping except Kevin and I and most of them got soaked from the rain. Sean was very proud of his older tent, which held up beautifully in the rain. He stayed nice and dry. Only Judy and Roy decided to call it quits. They had no sooner left when the rain stopped. Everyone grabbed their yaks and head for the water. It was still quite windy so we did not head out to the Mound as we wanted to do; instead we went the other direction and stayed on the river. What a beautiful river to paddle; not very wide and in some spots just room for one yak at a time.
Saturday night the weather turned cold, it was refreshing and enjoyable to sit around the campfire. We even had a young raccoon run though the campsite and scared the heck out of me, and when I scream I scared the poor little thing so bad it ran right into one of the kayaks and hit its head. The rest of the Kayakers took off and went for a hike on the natural trail in the dark. Sean took off to find them and hid in the bushes to jump out to scare them…but instead he jumped out and fell…lol. On Sunday the other kayakers took off for a morning paddle, then came back and slowly packed up, said their good byes and before long it were just us three.
Sean and I walked the nature trail back to the historical site. The Koreshan’s settled in Estero back in the late 1800s. Here is a link telling you all about this strange cult: http://koreshan.mwweb.org/. And at the historical site they have some of the same buildings and in the main building they have a video you can sit and watch. As Sean and I watched and learned about this settlement, we kept turning to one another in disbelief. It is amazing that someone with a strange belief can actually find people to give up everything they have and known just to follow this person to parts unknown. However, it was very interesting and at least the leader believed in Women’s rights, which was still unheard of back in those days.
All in all it was a wonderful relaxing four days. This is where we are spending our xmas vacation and are looking forward to staying 10 days at this park. There are lots around to do. If every in this neck of the woods this is a must to visit for a day or set up camp and stay awhile.
Tennessee’s Norris Dam State Park
(Click on the link below to see our pictures)
http://s962.photobucket.com/albums/ae108/geezlouise39/?action=view¤t=6b53d9fe.pbw
We finally made it to Tennessee. Two days drive up, three days camping, two days drive back. We left at 5am on Thursday the 13th of August and landed on Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, TN at 530pm. We stayed at a very nice hotel, newly built and on top of a mountain. After a refreshing night of rest, we were on the road at 630am for Norris Dam State Park, Lake City, TN and we arrived at our campsite at 930a.
We stayed at the west campground which had about 50 campsites. Trailers set up in the middle and tents around the parameter of the campground. This was a very clean, quiet campground with a nice restroom facility and a nice playground for the kids. There is also an east campground that we were not impressed with— not shady, and they also have several cottages in all different sizes. The campground was on top the mountain with the beautiful lake, Norris Dam and Clinch River below us.
We had two reasons to go to Tennessee, we delivered the kayak that Kev built to the owner, and we love to go to Tennessee. The fellow that we were delivering the boat to, also name Kevin, come later on Friday to get his boat. I did not think he would ever stop smiling. Nice young fellow who works two part time jobs and goes to college full time. After we took several pictures of Kevin, unwrapping his boat and loading on his car—it looks so cute on top his car—we made a date to go out paddling the next day
We were all set up, had to run to town to get groceries, supper done, showers taken and we were kicking back by the camp fire. When I notice Kev was looking out around us and he looked at me and ask, “are those lightening bugs?” I looked around and sure enough there they were; not a lot of them, just one here and there. Having been raised in Ohio I was very familiar with lightening bugs, and told Kev that yes they were. Then I just looked at him and saw a 53 year old man turn into a 10 year old boy. I asked him if he had ever seen one before and he was like no, this was the first time he had ever seen them. It was fun to watch him, he seemed ecstatic. I wish I could have caught one for him.
On Saturday morning we took off for a morning paddle around the lake…well part of the lake, it has 900 square miles of shore line. We found a quaint little fishing spot where we launched from. We had to carry the boats down a steep hill and back up, but it was worth it. The lake is clear and beautiful. There was boat traffic but nothing too bad. We paddle 5 miles that morning, and stopped for about an hour to swim. We realized that it is pretty difficult to find a decent landing spot. You were either in muck or rocks. But we finally found a pretty cool spot to get out. Kevin actually went swimming, something he is not that fond of. I convince him there was nothing in the water that could eat him…lol.
Around 5p we were in the water again, this time our new friend Kevin joined us. We took lots of pictures of Kevin in his new boat. This was Kevin’s first paddle in his new boat and it was a nice long paddle of 6 miles around Norris Dam. We noticed that there were only one other kayak on the lake which was a tandem, and I found this surprising since it is such a beautiful lake to be on. The boaters out on the lake appeared to be looking at us as if we were from Mars, so we are not sure if they just were not familiar with Sea Kayakers on the lake or if they could not believe that Kev had enough guts to paddle a Florida Gator boat on their lake….
Sunday we spent playing tourist. Right by Norris Dam is Weir dam, which was very pretty and poplar place for the locals to come out and fish. In the same area was the Rice Grist Mill and Crosby Threshing Barn, where Kevin was in heaven looking at all the antique tools and watching the how the mill wheel works. Lenoir Museum displays several pioneer artifacts from the area that Mr. & Mrs. Lenoir spent a life-time collecting. Then our last stop was the Museum of Appalachia, which is set up to display how a community looked and how it worked. They call it a Living Mountain Village, and had lots of animals hanging around. I was thrilled with the peacocks and roosters that were running around. A very nice day of visiting the community; hot and tired we headed back to our camp.
We were pretty surprise by the lack of birds around the lake, we thought that we would see lots, we heard a hawk, but never saw it. Around the campsite there were several different types of birds going from tree to tree, Deers that popped out from the bushes every now and then, there were raccoons that came out at night and played in people’s trash, a feral cat that came out every evening looking for food, and squirrels, which refused to come to Kevin and get a peanut. He got so upset with him that he just scattered them around for the birds and raccoons to get. I tried to explain to him that the squirrels in Tennessee are not as friendly to humans as they are considered dinner here…lol. We saw lots of butterflies, a few horseflies, bees of all shapes and sizes, and lightening bugs; what we did not have were mosquitoes or noseeums. One of our fellow campers said that he camps there year around and never gets sees biting bugs. It was a pleasant change to be sitting out early in the day and late at night and not getting bug bites. Then each night we had the cicadas singing us to sleep…well they put Kevin to sleep, once I put my earplugs in I could not hear their annoying noise.
We left the following Monday around 8a, with promises to come back for a longer stay. We decided to drive till about 5p, then get a hotel room. We landed in Lake City, Florida…hahaha, we went from one Lake City to another. I got Kevin to go swimming again by telling him they had a heated pool, well I thought it was heated when I put my toe in…must had been a warm spot…lol. He finally got a little swim in before he got out of the cold pool on into the hot sauna. After a restful night sleep we headed home and landed at my doorstep around 1230p. Another wonderful trip in, now it is time to concentrate on our trip in October.
High Tide or no Salt Springs!
Leaving from Brasher Park located in Port Richey, the Bill Jackson trip with around 18 paddlers, headed out into the Gulf of Mexico. The weather was perfect for a day of paddling and the water was calm. The minute we left the lagoon from Brasher Park into the Gulf of Mexico there was a small spoil island, I learned is called Durney Key and several houses on stilts. I had no idea there was such a thing in the Gulf of Mexico. But there they were and how fascinated we all were. Of course the minute we got home we had to look them up on the internet. They are privately owned “fishing cabins”. Here is a link so you can read about the wonderful history on these cabins. http://www.fivay.org/stilt_houses.html
Our destination was Salt Springs; our fearless leader Michael took a right into a small river that twisted us back toward the spring. Along the way we had a few white egrets hanging out in the shallow water, then a big blue heron decided to land and got a little too close to one of the big whites. No fight broke out, but the egret decided to leave the area. We also had several Osprey diving in to get the breakfast or lunch.
This was a nice paddle and we got to meet new friends. Margaret and her daughter Christine, this was there first Kayak paddle. Ed and Henrietta, this was the 2nd time out for her, but Ed looked like he had been paddling some. Scott, Kevin’s boss for HSN, it was his first time out with us, but has paddle some and very comfortable in the water. Dan was new to us and had paddled a few times with Bill Jackson’s group and he had a friend with him, and I hate to admit that I did not get his name. I also did not get the Grandfather and Grandson’s name that joined us. There were two other ladies that I had meant before but not that familiar with, Lynn and Karen. I loved Lynn’s hat and went out after the paddle and got one—they are called Sun-Day. There were also old paddling buddies we had not seen for awhile, Judy and Roy, Craig, and Carol. Unfortunately, once we got back to the spot that was suppose to be open for us to kayak back to the spring, the tide was too low for us to do so. Then Scott found a little area that we were able to paddle up to where there was a small spring. It was very pretty paddling back to it, but very tight and we had to go single file. And would you believe I forgot to take any pictures once I got back there.
Our Leader Michael
We paddled back to Brasher Park to eat lunch, when we noticed two dogs at the tip of some mangroves and they looked like they were lost and did not know how to get back where they came from. Of course we had now idea where or how they got in their predicament. Kevin decided to paddle over to see if he could figure out if he could see their owners on the other side. When there were no-one around he paddle back to get pen and paper to write down their tag numbers and someone who could see the tags…print was too small. So off went Scott and Kevin to save the dogs, a very cute beagle and his buddy part wolf. The owner’s phone number was on the dogs tag and Kevin was able to reach her right away. She was on her way home from vacation, about 30 minutes out and told Kevin that she had a couple staying at the house to dog watch and she would call them. She also told Kevin the part-wolf would follow the beagle anywhere. So Scott put the beagle in his sit on top with him, Kevin towed them back to shore and the part-wolf followed swimming behind them Another fellow from our group thought he help out and paddled out to them, but this scared the part-wolf, who immediately turned around and went back to the mangroves. We got the beagle to shore and tied up; he received lots of attention, food and water. The guys went back to see if they could get the other dog to come with them. At this point here came the dog watchers. She came by bike and he came by boat, when he could not get the part-wolf to come to him, Kevin paddled the beagle over to him. The part-wolf then followed them home via the mangroves, which we found out was actually the owners back yard. I bet that these two will not be invited back to dog sit.
We plan to go back some day, but we will definitely be sure the tide will be on our side.
A Walk in a Park!
Sawgrass Lake Park is located at 7400 25th St N, St Petersburg Florida, and what a joy this quaint park is. According to the website http://www.pinellascounty.org/park/16_Sawgrass.htm, the park is 400 acres and it has a boardwalk that allows people to walk though one of the largest maple swamp on the Gulf coast of Florida. You will see plenty of wild life throughout the park, birds, otters, snakes, turtles and alligator. They have a nice observation tower where you can hang out and watch the wildlife.
The welcoming committee!
My dear friend for Ohio, JoAnn, came for a visit and while she was here I took her to the park for a late Saturday morning walk. The park in about 5 minutes from my house, unfortunately I do not visit often. However, my baby brother lives right around the corner and he takes his grandbabies there quite often. So if you need to know something about Sawgrass Park, like where are the gators hiding, he is the one to ask.
JoAnn and I spent several minutes at the observation tower where a big soft shell turtle was putting on quite a show for us…I think he was trying to get us to feed him. A little later another showed up just as big.
But since she had never seen an alligator and I was unable to see any myself at the park, I placed a call to my brother…where are the gators?? Well, come to find out there was a female about to lay eggs at marker 5, if we were going to see one that is where we needed to go.
So off we went. Just as he said, there she was lying beside the boardwalk at marker 5. But she had already laid her eggs and had a big mound beside the tree and she was standing guard. She was a beautiful gator, about 5 to 6 foot and was not paying much attention to us. We took pictures and just stood and admired her. Others walking by would stop and look. One young boy about 7 or 8 with his grandparents, spit twice at the gator and even though he was able to hit her she paid no attention. After the second spit and dirty looks from me and my friend, granny told the kid that the gator did not care and they moved on. What a way to teach the child about respect for nature…
Momma Gator
We were just about to leave when JoAnn saw this big turtle coming out from under the boardwalk heading for the nice mound the gator was protecting. Well knowing if the turtle stayed on his course there was going to an extremely upset gator. I got myself in position to take a picture. A couple came by and stayed to observe the action. Up the mound the turtle went, and just as he reached the top, momma gator took off and chomped down. She did not get the turtle just right, so he went flying though the air, where he landed none of us saw, so we were not sure if he had life threatening injuries or not.
Turtle soup anyone?
Momma gators decided to just lay right there on the mound and dare the turtle or anyone else to try and get her eggs. After seeing how swift and vicious she could be I know I wanted nothing to do with her eggs…lol. However, the young couple that stopped to watch with us, he decide he wanted to make her move again and was shaking the bush beside her, until my friend and I told him to leave her alone. His girlfriend grabbed his arm and took him down the walkway. People can be so ignorant!!
Protective Momma
This was the highlife of my friend’s trip and she could not wait to get home to tell her eleven year old grandson.
If you every get the chance take a walk around Sawgrass Lake Park, and enjoy!!
The trip that almost wasn’t!
He had his truck in for repair earlier in the week due to a valve going out in his transmission. Needless to say he was quite upset to see smoke and transmission fluid dripping out of his truck. He called the Ford dealership and they give us a tow truck number to call. While waiting for the tow truck, I called Alafia River State Park to let them know that we would not be there on Thursday and not sure about the rest of the weekend. Since we made our reservation with Reserve America, we had to call them to cancel and Kevin thought best to hold off just in case we could still make it…perhaps Ford had a loaner truck. We had to unhook the trailer and I called my Dad to come pick me and the trailer up, while Kevin went with his truck.
To our surprise the tow truck driver was there within 15 minutes, but my dad took forever. The tow truck driver told Kevin that he would wait until my Dad showed and the trailer was hooked up…neither wanted to leave me alone along side the highway. The tow truck driver was an extremely nice fellow. Well to make a long story short, the truck was declared ok by the service department, they stated they purposely overfilled the fluid and that the with him towing the trailer caused the fluid to spill out…thus smoke!
We left the service station and hooked the trailer up and headed for the campsite. I called to let them know we were on our way and expected to get there by 730p. We were there and all set up by 9p and heading for the shower.
The Alafia River State Park is located in Lithia, Florida is a small quaint park with 30 spots and a lake. Each spot is nice size and separate from one another…giving each camper a sense of privacy. Each spot is also either a back-in or pull-though on pavement, which was nice. This park offers off-road bicycling trails in three levels, novice, intermediate and advance. They are said to be some of the most challenge trails in the state. They also have horse trails and camp sites set up for those who bring their horse along for the weekend. The park mostly had lots of flies; just regular house flies that would swarm in when the sun came up and would leave when the sun went down. We could not get away from them, we would fog and they would laugh at us. They were extremely annoying. I saw my very first Bob White at the park. I have heard these birds all my life but never saw one…I was so excited I climbed off my bike and was chasing it thought the bushes to get a better look at him, but the Bob White wanted nothing to do with me.
I did not take this picture, I just downloaded the picture from the internet.
This was not a paddling trip for us; instead we just wanted a relaxing weekend, which was a good thing since the weather was not cooperating. It rained on an off all weekend, and even though we did not get any lightening, everyone around us was getting hit as we could see the lightening strikes from the distance and hear the thunder.
Saturday morning there was a break in the weather and we decided to go for a paddle. We packed a lunch and headed for the Alafia River off Thatcher road. This is where the State Park ranger advised us to go. Is the natural Alafia River and not busy. It was very secluded. We were the only ones on the water and the river was beautiful. There were area where it was narrow and only one boat could go though at a time, then we rounded a bend and the river was about a ¼ mile wide. We immediately saw a gator, but when we reach the part of the river where it was wide, there were gators galore. Thankful they were frightened of us. So much so, on the way back going though the narrow part of the river we came across a big gator, and he wanted to get away from us, but the water was too shallow that he could not dive under, so he decide to turn around and go back to land, mostly he wanted to get to the bushes. Kevin and I just back paddled and waited until he got to where he wanted before we continued. Black clouds were coming in on us so the paddle was short, but very enjoyable. We plan to go back again.
The lake at Alafia River State Park
Liquid Rhythm is up and running!
After a long time waiting our friends Sean and Jeff decided to it was time to get back in the game and start offering kayak trips. On June 20th, 2009, at the Chassahowitzka River at 10:10am, the guys along with 9 ½ paddlers, were in the water and the inaugural Liquid Rhythm paddle was underway.
It was our pleasure to support the guys on their first trip out and it was great to see a nice turn out and familiar faces; Bruce and Gloria, Red, Kathy, Dean, Kev and myself. And new faces, Sharon, who is a friend of Kathy’s and lives in Hudson, Lorrin and her 4yr old son Nickolas (this was our ½ paddler), they live in Valrico and when looking to buy some kayak gear landed on Kevin’s site, where he informed her of the paddle.
The Chassahowitzka River is a nice river to paddle, pristine and spring feed, which means it is great for cooling off on a hot day, and it was a hot day. Luckily we did have a little breeze and some cloud cover. We paddled back to the “Crack” a spring that is a great place to swim and cool off. You can paddle back so far, and then you have to walk about 100 feet in the narrow stream, but well worth it. Red, Kathy, Sharon, Bruce and Gloria decided not to paddle back with the rest of us and paddled about until we cooled off in the water and caught up with them.
There were lots of canoes and kayakers out on the river and lots of boat traffic to keep an eye out for. I would say half were courtesy and slowed down when they approached paddlers and the other half flew by creating a strong wake. This is a little unsettling to the novice paddlers, but the rest of us take it in stride and will play with the waves they create.
The wildlife was out and about, all but the Otters, which we heard had been playing in the river the day before, but I did not see any. I saw a beautiful big blue heron, egret, a blue crab, lots of big fish, then when we came back in up by the boat ramp was a small alligator. The small ones do not bother me, but I know momma has to be around somewhere.
The guys gave us a nice tour of the Chas, and with the tour you get two very experience tour guides. Both have a great wealth of knowledge of nature, water and paddling. They give their customer personalize attention, and will keep the paddle going as long as the customers like. They also provide lunch, which this time was fried chicken, potato salad and cole slaw, all delicious and home made by Sean and his wonderful wife Shelly. Oh, and did I mention they are very entertaining? Yes, you will laugh a lot with these two guys around.
All in all I would say it was a successful first trip for Liquid Rhythm, with more to come. Check out their website to find information on future trips. Come out and join us in play. http://liquidrhythmkayaking.com/Trips.html
